Kaufman County officials said a “security incident” discovered Oct. 20 disrupted courthouse computer operations and left some employees unable to open files, though the sheriff’s office and 911 services were not affected. The disruption centers on the Kaufman County Justice Center in Kaufman, Texas, where officials emphasized continuity of essential services while systems are restored.
The county is working with cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement to determine scope and cause and to assess whether any information was accessed or stolen. Officials have not identified the attack type, but symptoms—locked files and outages—track with common ransomware behavior. Texas requires local governments to report cybersecurity incidents to the Department of Information Resources within 48 hours, and the state’s Texas Cyber Command, created in 2025, is positioned to support responses by local entities.
Kaufman County anchors the eastern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and had an estimated 197,829 residents as of July 1, 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The county seat is Kaufman, and major population centers include Forney and Terrell. The main courthouse houses key judicial and administrative functions.
Public records show the county’s adopted general fund for fiscal 2025 totals $85,998,554, including line items for “Computer” ($1,077,250) and “IT/Managed Services” ($1,438,578). The county also offers a Tyler Technologies-hosted court records portal for public access to case information.
Officials said updates will be posted on the county website. Residents were advised to be alert for phishing emails that appear to come from county offices, a common tactic after government cyber incidents. A separate Oct. 1 data breach notification associated with “Kaufman County Texas” appears on the Massachusetts attorney general’s portal; it’s unclear whether that filing relates to the current courthouse outage.
